English Dub Review: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations “The Path That Boruto Can See”

Time for some ninja lion taming.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Boruto has been sucked through a portal after fighting Sumire, who turned out to be the one behind all the disturbances in town lately. Boruto is launched out of the portal into some kind of swamp chock full of ominous vines. Boruto soon realizes that the creature he was fighting is connected to this place somehow. The beast emerges from a nearby tree and attacks Boruto. The two of them go at it, though it appears Boruto is outmatched. Surprisingly, Mitsuki shows up to help and works together with Boruto to fight back against the creature. With their combined efforts and Boruto’s eye jutsu, they’re able to drop a few giant branches onto the creature, trapping it beneath them.

Mitsuki is about to finish the beast off when Sumire suddenly blocks the attack. She explains that she can’t allow Boruto to kill the beast and that she’s a traitor to the village. Boruto doesn’t care too much about that and just wants her to be safe. She explains her past more to Boruto, that she was made to be a weapon of revolution, before attacking Boruto and Mitsuki. The two fight, but Boruto stands between them before the fight can be finished, and reiterates that he trusts Sumire is a good person deep down. Sumire, with tears in her eyes, tries to order her creature to attack Boruto, but the beast is too loyal to Sumire and tries to care for her.

Sumire’s seal breaks, causing the area above them to start to collapse on them, but just before she can be crushed by vines, Mitsuki and Boruto, on the back of her creature, ride to the rescue. With the beast’s help, and with the aid of Boruto’s eye jutsu guiding them to their friends’ chakra, they’re able to find their way back to Konoha. They arrive at home safe and sound, and Sai comes to offer Sumire some counsel for her pain and struggle, though leaving her fate ultimately unknown.

Our Take:

This is the sort of episode that just makes you roll your eyes a bit. Boruto and its parent series, “Naruto”, have always been known for flashbacks and melodrama, but this just embodies the worst of that style of storytelling. These kinds of big “Payoff” episodes have to have a longer structure and buildup to get us to the point where we can have a big emotional from a character. However, Sumire, and in particular, her connection Boruto, is just so underdeveloped that it doesn’t earn my empathy or my attention. Her backstory with “The Foundation” just comes out of nowhere and doesn’t have much to do with the themes presented so far, and it’s not like Sumire was a very important character, to begin with. The fact that she was only really known as “The class rep” is indicative of this; it seems like not even the show cares to know her name until the plot demands so.

In terms of action, the entertainment value is pretty minimal, though functional. The animation is decent but uncreative. One of the drawbacks of having characters who are already strong ninjas (Even though they’re only in elementary school, which is annoying) is that there isn’t much need for them to use their abilities creatively to resolve a situation. One of the things that made the original “Naruto” such a treat was how realistic and strategic the fights were. Our characters were students, limited in their strengths, so they had to outsmart each other or demonstrate their specific mastery of something in order to beat each other. But here, it feels like Boruto and Mitsuki aren’t in any real danger, that they have plenty of things they can do to escape, so there just isn’t a lot of tension.

The issue that underlies this as well is that Boruto as a character just doesn’t work. He’s too much like his dad but without the negative aspects, so he becomes just a Mary Sue who is way more powerful than he deserves to be. I haven’t enjoyed him from the beginning, and his relentless optimism towards people just comes off as annoying and just plain stupid, instead of being the heroic quality that it’s supposed to be.

If you’re invested into this show, this will probably a perfectly serviceable arc for you, but even then, I think its still lacking in originality and impact. The major emotional hits just don’t land, and I found the whole thing to just be pretty boring.

Score
4/10